A letter
Last night I lay awake thinking about you. Wondering where you are right now. Perhaps married. With kids. May be a daughter? Is she the same age now as I was when I met you? 11? Do you worry about what happens to her when she travels by bus? Or walks home from school? Or gets stopped on the road by someone asking her for directions? For you must know what happens to girls in public. How they get fondled. Their breasts touched and squeezed and pinched. How they get rubbed against. From the back. By strangers who press themselves against young girls. Leaving an ugly impression on their minds. Confusing the girls. Who are too young to understand what is happening to them. Too young to have the words to explain to others. Leaving them feeling ashamed and dirty.
Do you accompany your daughter when she goes to tuition class?Do you tell her to carry an umbrella with her no matter what the weather? Do you tell her why?
Do you lay awake at nights wondering about the girl you touched all those years ago? Do you wonder where she is now? And whether she is married and has kids. And if she warns her daughter about the men who don't see her as a child? Do you worry about it coming back to haunt you? It always does. As I write this, there's someone watching your daughter. And she is about to lose her innocence. Very, very soon.
Related link: Blank Noise Project
20 comments:
the ending is unexpected and kinda rude...
the narrator wishes wholeheartedly that the same thing happens to his daugther too which i find is very sad.
The narrator is nt wishing, anon. She is just telling how its going to be for a young girl, any girl, on the steets.
Awesome post, Ammani.
Why not remember some good experiences from our past? There must be at least some such experiences in our lives .. Bitterness doesnt always help, or does it?
Thank you, Ammani.
I've had this exact same emotion, out of rage and tears.
That he will spend the rest of his life worrying about if someone does that to his daughter - thats the only way he will know I still remember his thumb and forefinger rubbing, squeezing, feeling me down there when I was about 8.
It went on for about 3-4 minutes, but now, 20 years later, I remember the calloused fingers as clearly as if it were yesterday.
That was the first day someone touched me that way. (Unfortunately not the last, but then I learnt how to carry weapons like pins and long nails on the Bombay streets)
This is the anonymous 2 ... Well, I think I want to update my comments here. I did not understand that BlankNoiseProject is the context for which this article is being written. It makes sense now.
ammani
u know what
that man has a daughter now
my only fear is he does not repeat the same with his daughter
i feel guilty that i dont know how to get to her, to check if she is ok...
Blog with full of anger and comments with full of emotions, that is how I like to describe about this particular post and its comments.
Carry an umbrella??????? hey it is a very good idea.. I feel that you could have talked more about preventive measure. Like the parents should keep their kids informed about this. Also they should ask their kids to wear proper dresses while going outside.
For the questions you have raised... "Do you lay awake at nights wondering about the girl you touched all those years ago? ..."
Please don't ask these kind of questions to that kind of man... He doesn't hav time to think abt those old things.. rather he might be thinking abt doing some other things which you might write after a decade that... "And if she warns her granddaughter about the men who don't see her as a child?"
Ammani,
Another of those sad exploitation stories. Somewhere a tinge of raw reality. Too sad, this world is made up of too many perverted idiots lurking free on the roads. Even young boys are easy targets, as I was once in a crowded Mumbai local. An elderly man was pressing his lower body against my bums... and it felt real bad. When I got down at my station and gave him a look, he gave me one of his cynically evil looks with a sneer on his lips. Felt vincible, shaken and destroyed. I can only understand how a girl must be feeling. I have heard countless stories of girls being felt on railway bridges, in buses... Why is this world so... ? I am now a father to a daughter. And these thoughts haunt me, day in and out. I am going to make sure she knows martial arts so that she can defend herself. There are a few other things that I have told myself... like making her a mentally tough person to act right in any situation etc. Hope I would be a good Daddy to my little girl.
There is always someone watching, making sure that 'we' as women get our life's revelations whether we want it or not.
As one of my best friends once said : Friends may come and go, but the street harasser aka eve-teaser, will always be there. Watching us ,waiting for oppurtunities to fondle, to abuse, to harass.
Good to hear voices coming. Good post Ammani. Here is my 2 cents http://archanabahuguna.blogspot.com/2006/03/do-you-call-that-eve-teasing.html
my first reaction was similar to Comment 1..Then I realised the underlying sadness behind it.. th sadness that this man will probably NOT realise it...
Very very good post. I am a male and was a victim in a railway of Mumbai. At the rush hour crowd (I was teenage) I found someone fondling my private parts. That was really sick.
One thoght I have is that We must also try to find out what shapes the psychology of such people. I have a friend who once confessed to me that he had done things similar to what you narrated. He said he knew all the while that it was wrong, but just cudn't control himself. In his words, "it was some sort of beast that had taken control over me, it was like my hands had mind of their own and they would just move on their own". There is a saying in Sanskrit "Kaamaaturaanaam na bhayam na lajjaa" means those who are overpowered by sexual desire, have neither fear nor shame. By this he does not mean that he is not ashamed of what he did or that it was not his fault or anything. I wonder if Blank Noise is thinking from that angle as well. For helping such men control themselves in time.
As aalways I enjoy your blogs.
Powerful.
Amazing QT as always....
Those were pretty much my thots too as I suffered in the buses of Singara Chennai. Back then as a naive school going girl I used to curse such men saying that they would realise the pain and misery of it when their daughters come back home with stories of their suffering.
Good to see that lot more people have thot on those lines too ;-)
Keep up the good work !
One of the anonymouses brings up a very good point, about people who cant help commiting these despicable acts. something like 'kleptomaniacs', they know its wrong yet they are wired in such a way,it is beyond them to stop.
saw a very interesting documentary a while back about pedophiles, along these lines. some of them resorted to self mutilation to prevent themselves from harming children ! there is little research on these kind of disorders, plus the enormous stigma of owning it in the first place.
I sometimes wonder why people so talented as you do not write about something nice, pleasant things that happened to you? Why not write something when you are happy about something and not always when something disturbs you? Not that I'm trying to escape but c'mon there must be a time you feel good about yourself and turn to your PC to emote?
Or have I missed any quick tales? Well I have you on my blog reader so I read you almost everyday.
well...I'm listening.
what is the umbrella thing?? i did not understand that part
I am glad that Ammani chose to bring this subject up. I can't understand how the Indian culture that is so proud of its moral values has not addressed this all so common sexual abuse of young children. I think everyone of us has experienced this in one form or another...I have witnessed a few indecent exposures growing up in India. As a parent now, I strongly believe in educating our children age appropriately about these issues and making them understand that such things are called sexual abuse and should be reported to their parents. The lack of open dialogue in Indian homes is the reason we did not know how to respond to such threats. Perverts and danger cannot be completely eliminated....but our young ones can be trained at home and school to handle such situations safely and without emotional scars.
Great work ammani!! You definitely need a wider audience to raise awareness of such social issues...
Regards,
a fellow chennaite who has made her home in Southern California
my only fear is he does not repeat the same with his daughter
exactly. I have witnessed men rubbing their daughter and went confused..(couldn't understand what on earth is going on here).
Have you seen the movie "The woodsman", chilling. (how did I miss to quote that in my post.)
one interesting observation. why there are too many "anons"?
fucking awesome, yes!
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